Charles Dickens wrote a very famous, classic book called
A Christmas Carol. It is about an old man named Ebenezer Scrooge, who is very cold and bitter, and treats everyone he knows badly. He says that Christmas is "humbug", or nonsense, and he refuses to go to his nephew Fred's Christmas party. He also has no respect for those less fortunate than himself, saying that they should go to prison, or the workhouses. He doesn't pay his employee, Bob Cratchit, nearly enough money, and he reluctantly gives him Christmas day off.
One Christmas Eve night, everything begins to change for Scrooge. He is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley. Marley tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits, who will give him the chance to change for the future.
The first spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Past, shows Scrooge the way he was when he was much younger. He shows Scrooge his old school, from when he was a young boy. Scrooge sees himself sitting on the floor, reading all alone, and he feels sorry for his younger self. He then sees a Christmas a few years later, where he is a teenager, and his younger sister Fan tells him that there father has sent a carriage to bring him home for Christmas. Ebenezer adores his sister, and tells her "You are quite a woman, little Fan!" (Dickens 27). I think that this scene is really important, because it shows that Ebenezer Scrooge used to have a good, warm heart, and from the way older Scrooge reacts to seeing this, you can tell that he's still the same way, deep down.
A good question in this part that is never really answered, is "What made Scrooge go from being such a friendly boy to a bitter old man?" it is clear that he isn't all that bad, even as an older man, so it's a mystery why he treats people so harshly. Scrooge also feels bad when he sees where he used to work as a young apprentice, and he realizes that his boss, Mr. Fezziwig, treated him much better than he treats Bob Cratchit. Scrooge had really liked Mr. Fezziwig, and he and his fellow apprentice were raving about how good of a boss he was.
Charles Dickens did a really great job of writing this story, because he shows that there are way more important things in life than having money. He shows that being with the people you love and care about is the most important thing, and that if you treat others kindly, you will have a much happier life than if you are mean to them. This book deserves an A-, because some of the dialogue is hard to understand, but it is still a great story.
